Jessica "Jess" Mitra
An Alliance soldier and Agent with an unusual background, Jessica "Jess" Mitra is a highest-order Biotic and Infiltrator who is one of the best-known but least-recognised "Go-To" people for her kind of talents in the Alliance. Few have ever met her face-to-face, fewer have known who they were actually talking to. Dossier Jessica "Jess" Mitra was born on Earth in 2153, but when she was eight years old, in 2161, her Parents and her younger Sister, Caris Mitra, moved to a new Colony to escape what her Parents saw as the oppressive hand of the Alliance. It turned out to be both the worst mistake her family ever made-and the making of her. Two months after their arrival on New Texon, an undiscovered Prothean ruin was discovered almost exactly beneath where the colony had been constructed. It was built underground and heavily secured, deliberately, clearly intended to be not only secure but secret. In fact, the more detail that was discovered by the researchers, the more clear it became that the structure was designed to be not only impossible to detect from the surface, let alone orbit, but secure against most forms of assault. The Protheans had evidently gone to considerable effort, over years of work, to make the abandoned facility impenetrable by any outside force even were it discovered. What would have withstood almost any form of physical or technological assault in it's day, though, had fallen to an enemy even the Protheans couldn't defeat-time. The facility had been placed into Lockdown before the Protheans abandoned it, but the systems and programs maintaining the facilities security were failing, collapsing as the power failed and time took its toll. On discovering that they could conceivably gain first access to an undisturbed secret Prothean facility, without external assistance of knowledge of any sort, they decided to breach by themselves and take first pick of the spoils. Some members of the Colony were technicians, others were scientists, engineers, soldiers and of various other professions. Between them, they managed to breach the Lockdown and penetrate the facility for the first time in 50,000 years. Internal security had long since failed-and New Texon died that day as a result. The facility was a Prothean Bio-Weapons Hot Lab, a place of experimentation and storage for the worst nightmares every scientist focused on death and destruction the Protheans had had come up with since before the start of the Reaper War. It had been abandoned near the end of the War, as the desperate Protheans threw all of their remaining resources and personnel into building the Crucible, but the scientists in the labs had made significant progress towards finding biological and chemical weapons that would work against the Reapers. When the facility was breached, everything they'd been working on was released into the planets environment-and Hell rose. Some went insane, other simply lay down and died, some melted, some were left so changed or affected by the attack that what was left wasn't recognisable as Human. Some were physically and mentally warped beyond imagination and became...things that will never be found in any records. The blood boiled in some's veins, internal organs liquified, brains shut down while the body became no more than a raving animal. The only people resistant in any form to the weaponry were the few Biotics on the Colony, all seven of them, out of 3,000 colonists. Jess, the strongest Biotic on the colony, lasted long enough to activate an Emergency Beacon before being shot in the head and left for dead. The Alliance responded to the distress signal, but nobody on the Saratoga, the cruiser which arrived to supply help, will speak about what they found, even under torture. The chaos and destruction were so severe that all the Saratoga's crew could do, unless they wanted to go in shooting and kill everyone, was wait and monitor the situation. A week later, with almost everyone dead, teams in Hardsuits with fully self-contained environments went down to find out what had happened and if there was anyone left to save or help. They found a critically wounded Jess and the other Biotics-but one of the survivors, a 13 year old boy, committed Suicide rather than be rescued, a fate worse than death to him after what he'd seen. The survivors recovered, the word came down direct from the Admiralty-scorch the earth. The Saratoga nuked the colony and, specifically, the Prothean facility, a Cover Story was created concerning the colonies generators blowing and creating a long-term biohazard while destroying the colony in the process-and the survivors were buried far away from prying eyes, deep in the dark guts of the military machine. They were all kept in Quarantine for a full year before Alliance command decided what to do with them. Four of the survivors, three women and a man, simply lost their minds as a result of what they had experienced. They were committed in top-security Psychiatric hospitals, far apart from one another, declared State assets and Classified to the point even surviving family members didn't know that they were alive. A young man, Joseph Luschenko, sixteen years old, lost his memory completely and didn't react to outside stimuli for a week-except for Jess. He never recovered his memory, so was quietly Adopted by a spacer military family, given a new identity and history, recruited when he turned 17 and has been with the military ever since. Jess herself was, though, a different matter. She was changed by the attack, but not like any other survivor. Before she was attacked, she was a dark brunette with light brown eyes, the physique of someone who grudgingly exercises once a day and a childs developing features. After the attack, her skin had turned a ruddy gold, her hair white and her eyes entirely jet black. Her physical skills exceed any standard set for Humans her age, size and physique-and are developing further as time passes. Also, her eyesight has changed, she see's the difference in heat signatures with her remaining eye, not seeing a "normal" view at all. As a result even Tactical Cloaks will not prevent her from seeing an opponent-she can see the area affected by the Cloak. Her lost eye was replaced with a cybernetic copy, the damage to her face and skull repaired with Cloned tissue and surgery. It took genetic testing to reveal the truth, that the attack had produced random, uncontrolled mutations in Human DNA already altered by the presence of her Biotics. Essentially, she is a Mutant, a genetic freak result of the attack that changed her forever. That made her interesting-and useful. She was made a Ward of State, raised by several Foster Parents to prevent her from forming any serious emotional bonds and, over and over again, was encouraged to learn everything she could about combat and Biotics. Her entering the military at 17 in 2170 was planned for years before-and she has gone on to redefine the word impossible every time there is something which "Need's doing". A Black Ops, Deniable Operations specialist, she does the dirty work others can't or won't and doesn't fail. Although, with her exotic, even inhuman, looks, the Alliance has made a point of keeping her out of the public eye. Doing what she does meant that when Shepard made her claims about the Reapers in 2183, especially after the attack on the Citadel, she not only suspected it was the truth, she was directly Tasked by Admiral Hackett with determining whether or not it was with as close to absolute certainty as could be managed. After disappearing for six months, going completely off-grid to investigate, she came back with enough evidence to convince Hackett-who, after seeing Sovereign at the Citadel with his own eyes, had very little doubt anyway. In 2185 he Tasked her again, this time to investigate the Colony abductions. She was able to prove it wasn't Cerberus, but Shepard came back from the dead and announced it was the Collectors before she found out herself. Hackett pulled her out of the investigation in case the Illusive Man got ideas about laying hand on a top Alliance Agent. Instead, he re-routed her to help Liara T'Soni with the Shadow Broker, since Hackett knew Liara was one of few actually investigating the Reapers-and access to the Shadow Brokers files and resources would make her job far more helpful. That it would make his job easier was a significant bonus... But Liara took Shepard and her team in to do the job, so Jess returned to Earth. When Shepard surrended herself after destroying the Bahak system by blowing up the Relay, killing 300,000 Batarians, Jess was present when Hackett took her into custody with a guard of MP's. Again, her investigation proved to Hackett that Shepard was telling the truth, but there was no way for Shepard to avoid responsibility for her actions. Jess was on the flagship SSV Orizaba with Admiral Hackett when the Reapers attacked Earth-and has been on N7 raids right across the galaxy ever since. The War isn't over yet... Powers/Abilities Class: Vanguard, L5n. Biotics: Dark Channel, Throw, Lift, Warp, Barrier, Biotic Charge, Shockwave, Nova. Tech: Incendiary Ammo, Cryo Ammo. Weapons: Geth Plasma Shotgun, Carnifex Heavy Pistol, Omni-Blade. Armour: Collector Armour. Category:Humans Category:Vanguard Category:Female Category:Characters